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40 ORNAMENT 37.1.2013
including tin cups, frayed tulle, and tattered newspapers.
Galliano revisited the newspaper theme in Dior's fall
2000 ready-to-wear collection, composing a custom
newspaper, The Christian Dior Daily, and printing it on
a variety of materials for clothing. One of the dresses, of
printed silk with an asymmetrical hemline, rocketed to
fame when Carrie Bradshaw, played by Sarah Jessica
Parker, wore it in season three of Sex and the City
(2000), and in the second Sex and the City film (2010).
Bradshaw, like Manly and Biglin, worked for a
newspaper, and the dress reflects both her profession
and, with the words "Christian Dior Daily" across her
waist, her status as a fashionista.
Galliano continued working with newspaper
imagery, even introducing newspaper t-shirts, pants,
and underwear. The "news" in his prints often includes
Galliano's name and image, and turns wearers into live
advertisements, an approach used decades earlier, in the
mid-1930s, by Elsa Schiaparelli when she designed a
fabric printed with a collage of her press clippings.22
Many other contemporary designers also have used
newsprint in recent years, including Betsey Johnson
whose dress combines English and Chinese writing,
Anna Sui whose dress is black with white text, and
Nicolas Guesquière for Balenciaga who combined
newspapers and product packaging as influences.
Designers continue to work with actual newspapers to
create attire as well, encouraged both by the popularity
of DIY projects and recycling. Gary Harvey, for example,
created a dress using thirty copies of the Financial Times
in 2007, dramatically bringing attention to his interests
in recycling, up-cycling, and ethical sourcing in the
fashion industry. Season Six of Project Runway (2009)
even featured a challenge in which participants made
newspaper outfits.
Early costumes often embodied a straightforward
approach to newspapers, allowing wearers to represent
"the news" or a specific newspaper for entertainment or
advertisement. As creation of newspaper fashion
expanded from individuals making one-of-a-kind
outfits for themselves to designers producing printed
yardage and ready-to-wear clothing, the focus largely
shifted to promotion of brands and themes, losing the
immediacy of incorporating a recent newspaper but
gaining in volume and fashion credibility. Richard
Martin, when discussing the newspaper dress in the
collection of the Costume Institute, wrote that "the
annexation of text to dress gives it new context: editorial
PRESS DRESS worn by Mrs. Matilda Butters (1837-1878), 1866, silk and gold braid, Mrs. William Wilson Dobbs (Dressmaker). Collection of the State
Library of Victoria, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Opposite page: MARTHA LIN MANLY (Hogshead, 1904-1992), newspaper dress, 1929, sateen
(probably a cotton and synthetic blend). Historic Clothing and Textile Collection; Department of Textiles, Merchandising and Interiors; College
of Family & Consumer Sciences; University of Georgia; gift of Frank Hogshead and The Dalton Daily Citizen.